


Free Agents

by battle_cat



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, First Kiss, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22870885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/pseuds/battle_cat
Summary: “Crowley?”Aziraphale was looking down at his wine, a finger worrying the rim of the glass. “What are we?” he asked.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 367





	Free Agents

“Crowley?” 

They were sitting on the couch, the day after the world didn’t end. They had lingered at the Ritz for hours, talking and drinking, giddy with relief. In the early evening they had drifted back to the bookshop for that nice Bordeaux Aziraphale had been saving on the off chance they didn’t both die.

Wine was poured and a very long anecdote about medieval France was reminisced over and it was almost—almost—the way it had been countless times before the world had started ending. With one exception. Instead of lounging in his favorite armchair while Crowley draped across the sofa, Aziraphale had settled himself on the sofa as well. At the opposite end from Crowley. But still.

“Mm?” Crowley answered. It was quite a lot of work, looking all casual while Aziraphale’s knee was a hand’s width away from where his leg dangled off the couch. It didn’t leave much focus left for conversation.

Aziraphale was looking down at his wine, a finger worrying the rim of the glass. “What are we?” he asked.

“Er—guh—krk,” Crowley began, scrambling to come up with something that could possibly be an innocuous answer to that question.

“I mean...” Aziraphale went on. “I suppose Heaven and Hell are properly done with us now.”

“Looks that way.”

“But I haven’t Fallen.” A shadow of worry crossed his face. “I _haven’t_ Fallen, have I?”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “You’d know.”

“And you, well, you haven’t...Risen?”

Crowley made a rude noise, which was frankly more than that idea deserved.

“Right, right. So then, what...are we? Metaphysically speaking.”

Crowley shrugged. “Free agents?”

“I was going to say exiles.”

“Escapees?”

“Asylum seekers?”

“Not the worst company you could be among.”

“No. No, it’s not.” Aziraphale was still studying his wine. “I don’t feel any different. Metaphysically.”

“Did you expect to?”

“I thought, maybe. Well. I thought we might lose the miracles. But. They seem fine.” He tapped a neatly manicured fingernail against the glass. The wine turned into water, then into Italian meringue with a dusting of nutmeg on top, then back into wine. “You haven’t had any problems, have you?”

Crowley sat up. “Wait, go back. Why did you think that?”

Aziraphale gave him a curious look. “Because we draw the power from...” He gestured briefly to Up Above and Down Below. “Kind of assumed they’d cut us off. Still would’ve been worth it, mind—”

“No we don’t.” Crowley leaned forward, and he wasn’t sure when he’d taken off his sunglasses, but he suddenly, urgently needed to catch Aziraphale’s gaze, because that _couldn’t_ be—

 _“Angel.”_ Aziraphale looked up. “We don’t—that’s not how—” Crowley stopped, took a breath, because Aziraphale suddenly looked very confused, and a little scared, and he needed to say this _right,_ bless it.

“Is that what they told you?” he said as gently as he knew how. “That your power comes from Heaven?”

“I—yes? Of course it does?” Aziraphale was trying very hard to look annoyed, but something else was seeping through, something terribly vulnerable, and Crowley suddenly, fervently wished he’d breathed a lot more hellfire up there. Because it was absurd, _absurd,_ the idea of a metaphysical being somehow not knowing how they _worked,_ not even knowing their own _nature._ And it also made perfect sense, because what better way to convince an angel that they were nothing without Heaven?

“No,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t. The miracles don’t come from Heaven and Hell. They don’t own that. They come from _us._ Reality-shapers, that’s—that’s who we are, that’s—” Satan help him, he couldn’t believe he was saying this. “That’s how She made us.”

Looking at Aziraphale’s face was physically painful, because Crowley could _see_ it, see the denials trying to form and the well-worn gears of cognitive dissonance trying to grind into action. But that machinery had taken a severe beating as of late, and all Aziraphale managed to do was blink a lot.

“You seem very certain,” he breathed.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m certain.”

“Why?”

He swallowed past the hard lump in his throat. “Because I asked Her about it. A long time ago.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, and whispered something so quiet Crowley couldn’t make it out (and he didn’t think it was really for his ears anyway) but it sounded like _of course you did._

It was true that demons couldn’t sense love, not the way angels could. They were, however, extremely finely attuned to negative emotions. And the emotion pouring off Aziraphale in thick, noxious waves was shame.

Aziraphale’s hand was resting on his knee, fingers digging into the soft flesh so hard it looked painful. Before he could overthink it and lose his nerve, Crowley reached out and covered it with his own. He was ready to pull back at the slightest flinch—but Aziraphale twined their fingers together and squeezed.

 _“God.”_ It was barely a whisper, but his voice was shaking with suppressed bitterness. “I let them feed me so many _lies._ ” He swallowed, and Crowley could see the effort of choking down millennia of anger and humiliation at work. Aziraphale’s grip on his hand could politely be described as _crushing,_ but there was no force in the universe that would make him let go.

“I’m an idiot,” Aziraphale mumbled.

“You’re not, though. You’re brilliant.” Aziraphale didn’t seem to have heard him at all. Crowley realized with a lurch that the angel was close to tears.

“I really thought that they were _right,_ and that they _knew,_ and that _I_ was the defective one if I didn’t—”

“Of course you did, that’s what they wanted you to think—”

“But I could have questioned, I could have thought for myself—I could have said something when they were treating me terribly—I _knew_ they were treating me terribly and I just _let them_ —”

“Hey. No. Stop.” His free hand was on the soft flesh of Aziraphale’s chin, turning his face toward him, and he was trying very hard not to think about the fact that it meant he’d had to shift position so he was kneeling on the couch, his knees pressed against the warm curve of Aziraphale’s thigh. There were all sorts of klaxons going off in his head that Aziraphale was letting him touch his face and letting him squeeze his hand and squeezing back even—he shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind.

“Listen.” Aziraphale was looking up at him, his expression so open and anguished, and Crowley nearly lost his concentration straight away. “You’re done with those wankers, right? All of ‘em. You’re free now.”

Aziraphale gave him a thin, watery smile. “They _are_ a bunch of wankers, aren’t they?” A flicker of clandestine glee ran across his face and then managed to stab Crowley somewhere under the ribs.

“Cosmic-level wankers,” he agreed with a grin.

What happened next happened like a tiny landslide, both inevitable and sudden. His hand was still cupped around Aziraphale’s jaw, and Aziraphale only had to duck his head a few inches to kiss his palm.

It was hardly anything, the barest press of lips and warm breath, but Aziraphale’s gaze was on him the whole time, and Crowley felt like he’d grabbed a live wire. Perhaps this was why his brain just sputtered and sparked when Aziraphale pulled him with absurd ease into his lap. Suddenly Aziraphale’s arm was around his waist, over his shirt but under his jacket, and Aziraphale’s terribly soft-looking mouth was an inch from his.

“Is this—are you okay?” Aziraphale breathed, so close their noses brushed.

“ _Yessss,_ ” he got out, not even caring that the sibilants got away from him. “Are you?”

They were almost too close together for Crowley to see the little smile on Aziraphale’s face. Almost, but not quite. “Free agents, right?” Aziraphale said, and kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr!](https://fuckyeahisawthat.tumblr.com/)


End file.
